Residents offer DOT support for 4th Ave. safety plan
The public seemed to like what it was hearing. Traffic experts from the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) came to a Bay Ridge public hearing on June 5 and introduced their plan to make changes on Fourth Avenue to increase safety and found an audience largely receptive to the proposal.
The idea of the public hearing, which was sponsored by Community Board 10, was to gauge public opinion on a DOT’s plan called “4th Avenue – Bay Ridge Corridor Safety Improvements,” according to Jesse Mintz-Roth, senior project manager for the agency. “We’ll show you where we are and we want your feedback,” he told the audience in Saint Anselm Church Hall Wednesday night.
The plan includes proposed safety enhancements such as reducing the number of lanes of traffic, building pedestrian islands in the middle of the avenue, extending the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curb_extension curbs at crosswalks at certain intersections to give pedestrians a shorter distance to walk as they cross from one side of the avenue to another, creating left turn bays for drivers at 22 intersections to help smooth the flow of traffic, and erecting an 80-foor-long curbside fence on Fourth Avenue between 86th and 87th Streets to prevent pedestrians from crossing the street mid-block.